Have a Garden? Beware of What’s Lurking in your "Bee-Friendly" Plants!

Take Action: Tell Home Depot and Lowe to stop selling poisoned plants!

Beyond Pesticides just helped to release a new first-of-its-kind report with Friends of the Earth and other allies, which reveals that the world’s most popular pesticides, neonicotinoids (neonics), implicated as a key factor in global bee die-offs, may be lurking in our own gardens. Neonicotinoid pesticides, like imidacloprid and clothianidin, remain in plants for the life of the plant, and contaminate nectar and pollen, as well as soil and surface water. More than half of the “bee friendly” home garden plants tested, sold at major retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s, contain neonics -- with no warning to consumers.

This report shows this problem is widespread, and that many unsuspecting home gardeners purchasing plants treated with neonics for “bee-friendly” gardens may actually be poisoning bees and other pollinators.

Europe has already banned bee-harming pesticides, and top retailers in the UK are refusing to sell them. Beyond Pesticides and allies are challenging top garden retailers to make the same commitment here in the US.

Bees are essential to our food system and they are dying at alarming rates. We can protect bees in our own backyards and gardens right now by rejecting neonics and demanding that top retailers stop selling these bee-killing pesticides. Please join us in asking Lowe's and Home Depot to BEE Protective and give bees a chance by not selling bee-killing pesticides.

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Background:

Neonicotinoids are a relatively new class of insecticides that share a common mode of action that affect the central nervous system of insects, resulting in paralysis and death. They include imidacloprid, acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam. Peer-reviewed science has repeatedly identified these insecticides as highly toxic to honey bees and other pollinators.Once applied, plants take up these pesticides and exude them in their pollen and nectar, subsequently endangering any pollinators that forage on these contaminated plants.

With one in three bites of food reliant on bees and other beneficial species for fruit production, the decline of these important species demands swift action. The mounting scientific evidence, along with unprecedented annual colony losses at 40 to 90 percent this year, demonstrate the impacts that these pesticides are having on these fragile beings.

For a list of all actions and alerts by Beyond Pesticides, see our actions page!

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